The little villages are so tiny and quaint all the red roofs, surrounding the epicenter, the church.In many places these towns are not allowed to build structures taller than the church. I thought that was an interesting notion.

Villach is a relatively large place and is quite beautiful. The town surrounds a beautiful church named after St. Jakob.

The town itself like many others here is speckled with multicolored buildings and quaint little shops on every corner.

Maiya was lucky enough to get chased around buy a guy in a weird suit trying to sell Fanta to tourists.

Instead of Fanta we stopped in a cute little cafe for some gelato!

They gave us gigantic spoons that were really fun to eat with and on a nice hot day in Austria, nothing beats gelato.

After a nice little trompe through the town we went and visited a very interesting cemetery. With a beautiful entrance way the cemetery was basically begging us to come inside and have a look around.

It is interesting, in this cemetery there were plenty of flowers but it seemed like instead of more flowers most graves were dotted with little red candles. Apparently that is tradition here and it is one I really enjoy. I think it is an extremely nice idea to leave behind a burning candle to light the ways of the ones you love that have gone their separate ways.

Our stop in Austria was very brief but very interesting. We had stopped to have lunch with the family I am traveling with’s son who is doing an internship there. We ate at a nice little place where I got very typical German/Austrian food. I got goulash with some dumplings which is basically the only kind of food that they eat; meat and potatoes. That and cake. It was extremely good and flavorful and after just one dumpling I felt ridiculously full. It was a good Austrian experience and I was glad for the stop. However it was just a brief reprieve from our little road trip down to Italy and within that, VENICE!

My family and I went on a short trip up to Napa for my little brother’s road bike race called the Cherry Pie Criterium. Yes, the winners do get cherry pies, sadly not us though. This was my first trip to wine country and because I am not yet of drinking age we had to find some pretty awesome adventures other than wine tasting. First plan for adventure: visiting cool looking wineries and taking pictures of fields with flowers.

We visited one winery with really interesting statues around it and it was really beautiful. Not to mention the weather while we were p there, around 80 the whole time. Nice!

Just looking around Napa there is such beautiful architecture everywhere. I wish I could have taken photos of all of it. The other amazing part about Napa are the old trees. I love the trees there with their scraggly limbs and reaching arms.

Next item on the adventure agenda was food of course! You can’t go to Napa and not eat good food, I think it should be a crime not to get good food. Our food of choice was the CIA, not the federal scary secretive thing but the Culinary Institute of America.

It was really amazing. We got two samplers, the entrée samplers and then the dessert samplers. With a side of the best brussel sprouts I have ever eaten!

The case of the missing food, I went to the bathroom and lo and behold it was gone. What can I say? Next was the desert round!!

I loved the little cookie spoon in this panacotta, it was beyond adorable and fun to eat with.

That is all for part one of the Napa trip, tomorrow there will be more tales of our next exciting adventure. Heres a hint, it has to do with something medieval looking and many animals, stay tuned

Even flowers cry sometimes
What do they have to cry about?
They are so pretty
But they won’t stay pretty for long
And it isn’t about being pretty
It is about loosing life
Where did they loose it?
I laughed softly
Resting my hand on her shoulder
I don’t know
Maybe they left it under their bed
And forgot it was there
I did that once
She said with a sad sigh
I know I said smiling
Maybe they lost it
In the playground
Hidden under a sandy Everest
I think I get it
The flowers have lost their petals
And that is why they are sad
Exactly and they cry for each others loss
Then why doesn’t it make me sad?
Different things make different people sad
I say with a frown
Watching the poppy’s tears
Roll down its face
You will understand when you are older
But I want to understand now!
I know, I say with a smile
I know as I guide her away
To happier things
To flowers with open faces
Smiling at the sun
But she will never forget
The crying flower
Knowing that every flower she sees
Will cry someday
For what it lost in the sandbox
Or under the bed
We all loose something in the end

I also enjoyed the none to pleased looking mermaids on the float, especially the little mermaid inside of the clam. The others were really cool as well and the people manning them were very interesting as well.

One of the strangest things we saw was… Ronald McDonald. McDonald’s sponsored the Begonia festival so he got to take a ride on a little boat to wave at everyone. It was an interesting sight to say the least.

This first part consisted of the Sand Castle Contest. Some of them were quite interesting.

My favorites where the giant great white sand castle, and the giant sand sculpture of Poseidon and the BP oil spill.

This one was definitely the best, it had a message about the BP Oil Spill and of course the quality of the sculpture was amazing. The eyes and teeth made out of shells where so amazing and life-like. The seaweed oil spill was an interesting and unique touch as well. It was the last one on the beach and looking out over the whole crowd was quite a spectacle.

It was interesting looking at all of the people. It was a mob of beach goers all looking and appreciating the work of these sand artists.

I am glad I went, Part two will be coming up next.

My mom and I went on a beautiful hike at Mt. Rainier, Washington. We went through a field of wild flowers like these ones, along with many lupines, and others that I cannot begin to name. Flowers light up my life

We took our large bounty of fresh market goods over to the Washington State Ferries on pier 52 to catch our ferry to Bainbridge across the way. So we sat in our car waiting to load eating all of our food. I was really excited because I had never been on a ferry before let alone one where you take your car on with you. It was strange driving onto a ship but very cool. Can you spot our car?

We got out and went up on top to look around and it was so beautiful. I wonder if that is what it felt like to be on the titanic. Before it crashed of course. Just getting to see the Seattle skyline and the market place from out in the water was incredible. It was an experience I was very glad to have.

Once we were in Bainbridge we had to make a long trek around the Olympic Peninsula to get to the Hoh National Rain forest. The entire peninsula felt like a rain forest to me and let me tell you, it wasn’t lacking on the forest or the rain part. The one road going around the park took us along the way through Port Angeles and Forks which are better known through the Twilight books and movies.

No I am not going to totally bash Twilight but I do have something to say. The books were not bad. I read them when they first came out as a gift in like sixth grade and I enjoyed them because they are a simply written romance book and it is a nice reprieve to read an easy book like that after reading so much classical literature that is my natural choice. The movies however I despise, a reasonable nice book has just become so gimmicky and obsessed over that it is enough to make you puke. So it made me a little sad to see such a beautiful place as the Olympic Peninsula only sought after because of these movies. There is so much beauty and extraordinary wonders there but all people think of when they here about it is this movie franchise. So my request; don’t think of the Olympic Peninsula as home to Twilight, it is home to forests and mountains that will blow your mind. Respect it for its beauty not the gimmicks surrounding it.

Well, now that that is said let me move on to the best part; Hoh National rainforest. My pictures can’t really do it justice to how haunting and dazzling this place was. It felt as if the trees where reaching out and were frozen in time letting the moss accumulate and grow dripping and stretching out towards you. In there it feels like time has reverse and you went back to the time of the dinosaurs.

We hiked along the Hall of the Mosses which took us to some mind-blowing maple trees that were just so incredible it is hard to explain. Seeing this for the first time is really extraordinary. It feels otherworldly.

After leaving the rain forest we headed down to Kalaloch beach and lodge for some dinner and a trip down to the driftwood covered beach. It was so foggy and rainy but it was still really cool to see these massive tree trunks and branches coating the beach. It too felt otherworldly like giants had dropped their Lincoln logs on the shore and left them behind to grow, shift, and drift away.

Side Note: Everything in Washington grows. EVERYTHING. Houses, streets, chimneys, logs, rocks, sand, even telephone booths. It is kind of ridiculous but really funny. I wish I could list all of the strange things that I saw that had moss or something growing on it.

We spent the night in Aberdeen and where very happy to finally be out of the car. We are so close to home

Butterflies are crafty creatures. They look so beautiful and graceful but when you look at them closely they are horrifying. Butterflies must be one of the scariest looking animals up close. Like this one here that I found in the Navajo National Monument in Arizona feeding on a Paintbrush flower. I was trying really hard to get a photo of him and was so jazzed when I got these but when I looked at them up close I realized they look like monsters. No wonder Mothra in Godzilla was so scary, it is the same sort of thing. Nature is a very deceiving thing some of the cutest or prettiest things are really scary. I don’t think I can ever look at butterflies the same again.